Favorite crossword author, Merl Reagle

[honestrosewater]

I don't know what this means: "absence implies unacceptibility."

I mean that something, a word or some property of words, not being on the list isn't a good enough reason to conclude that it was intentionally excluded from the list. There's no reason to think that the list is exhaustive (the author said those words were the only ones they had found). So being on that list of trinonyms (or one of a triple of trinonyms or whatever) is not necessarily the same as being a trinonym.

3) If a word is on the list, then i) the author became aware of the word and ii) the word was acceptable (as a trinonym).

4) If a word is not on the list, then i) the author did not become aware of the word or ii) the word was not acceptable.

(3) doesn't imply (4). (You might recognize that as the common fallacy called denying the antecedent.) And if you assume that (3) is true and that being on that list of trinonyms is not the same as being a trinonym, then you are forced to also assume that (4) is false, because if (3) and (4) were both true, then being on that list would be the same as being a trinonym.

"Police" is a noun, yes. In the phrase "police officer" "police" functions as a "descriptor" which modifies "officer" making the type of officer specific. This is a different dynamic than the mere redundancy of bunnyrabbit or kittycat, which are the undisputed, pure forms of trinonyms. So, the question in my mind is how far, and by what logic, does "bathtub" allow us to deviate from the pure form? If we allow "police officer" then why not "executive officer"?

Who says those two are undisputed or pure while the others are not? They are all on the author's list -- the author is the one who came up with the definition of trinonym and is the only authority on what is or is not what they themselves want to count as a trinonym.

If you want to take it upon yourself to add the requirement that they all must be compounds and must be noun-noun, verb-verb, [x]-[x] compounds, fine, good for you. I don't want to do that. I doubt all of the words on the list would even fit that requirement. But that's just a guess -- I haven't looked at histories and I can't yet think of anything that could help determine the category of the complements.

And again, even if there were, for example, no adjective-noun compounds on the list, that alone wouldn't mean that adjective-noun compounds were unacceptable. I don't think the author intended that [x]-[x] compound requirement, and I don't want to assume it.

What makes you think that kitty was a noun when kitty cat was formed? What makes you think it is functioning as a noun in the compound? Same questions for the other words. Categories are theoretical concepts, so you have to actually present evidence and an argument. (Well, you don't have to; I mean you in the more general sense.) Actaully, let me correct that. If you are presenting those as your judgments as an English speaker, as in "in my judgment as an English speaker, that word is a noun", then great; I have no objections. But if you're presenting that as an analysis, as in "according to such-and-such theory, the compound is structured like so...", you need the evidence and arguments.

In my opinion, the only reasons given that allow you to exclude a triple of words are that i) they aren't synonyms or ii) two of them don't appear in the third.

I haven't seen that use of descriptor before, but I guess that's not such a big deal.

Your quite right. I apologize for thinking you coined the term, and I think it's an excellent example of a trinonym.

Thanks, no problemo. I'm not sure whether I like it -- I'm not even sure what exactly streamflow means in the technical sense.

They are all noun-noun, with the exception of "taperecord". I'm simply extrapolating from that.

But why do you think they are noun-noun? They can be interpreted as noun-noun now. But, hm, did you read my rambling about sabertooth? In sabertoothed tiger, the -ed on sabertoothed suggests that sabertoothed is an adjective. But in sabertooth tiger, I can't think of anything to swing the vote either way. Sabertooth could be functioning an adjective or a noun.

Your right about these. They are more "bathtubby" than I realized at first.

Word forms can have more than one meaning. Cat and kitty are not synonymous in all contexts either, and neither are rabbit and bunny. Cat and bunny are sometimes used to refer to people. Kitty and bunny are sometimes used specifically for young cats and rabbits. Cat sometimes refers to any member of the family Felidae. And so on.

Q: How did you hurt yourself?
A: I slipped in the [bath/tub/bathtub].

I think the interpretation that this person slipped in some non-bathtub tub (say, crushing grapes for wine) is less common than the bathtub interpretation. In normal, everyday life, some English speakers can use tub to mean specifically bathtub, so for them, the words are synonymous. If you want to know how common that usage is, you can always check the dictionary, for starters.

That's not a rule, it's an observation.

Oh, it seemed that you were using it as a reason to reject sunrays.

I listen to people talk, I read, watch tv. I have never heard anyone say "sunray". I've heard "sun's rays" quite a bit, as well as "sunbeam" but "sunray" only conjures up a brand of sunglasses. For me to say that people don't use it was probably not a proper objection to it being a trinonym, though. I think the reason it struck me as wrong is because sun and ray, while closely related, aren't broadly synonymous.

Right, it might be a narrower context in which ray means specifically a sunray or ray of sunlight or whatever. I know I have heard catch some rays several times. In that phrase, it seems synonymous with sunrays.

(To see how else your version of English might differ from that of other English speakers, or just for fun, you might like this: http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html . This question cracked me up: http://cfprod01.imt.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_59.html )

Anywho, if I seem angry, I'm not trying to be -- in fact, I'm trying not to be. I don't know what it is exactly; maybe I read something into your comments that isn't there. It often seems to me that you are just trying to pick a fight, as opposed to, say, have a discussion, with me, and me trying to have a discussion anyway hasn't worked, so I guess I'm giving up until I have a better idea.

 

[zoobyshoe]

HRW, I have a theory about an unrelated matter, and it would be of interest to me to know what your speaking voice and speech patterns are like. I wonder if you could describe them to me. Hope that doesn't sound too off the wall.

 

[honestrosewater]

HRW, I have a theory about an unrelated matter, and it would be of interest to me to know what your speaking voice and speech patterns are like. I wonder if you could describe them to me. Hope that doesn't sound too off the wall.

Sure, I could try, but I wouldn't know where to start, what kinds of properties you're looking for... like expressiveness, pitch, volume. Do you have some options, like a little questionnaire?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sure, I could try, but I wouldn't know where to start, what kinds of properties you're looking for... like expressiveness, pitch, volume.

Those you mentioned, yes, plus pronounciation, enunciation, fluidity (meaning do you pause a lot or throw in a lot of "um"s and "er"s or does it all come "trippingly off the tongue"), plus anything distinctive you think people would notice.

 

[honestrosewater]

Those you mentioned, yes, plus pronounciation, enunciation, fluidity (meaning do you pause a lot or throw in a lot of "um"s and "er"s or does it all come "trippingly off the tongue"), plus anything distinctive you think people would notice.

Okay, based on my own quick judgements...

My pronunciation is pretty much standard, or General, American English. I'm a rather careful, tidy speaker. I pay attention to details (I do write and study language, so I notice details). People rarely give any indication that they have trouble understanding me. I've tried to avoid getting into the habit of including fillers like um, uh, like. The range and quality of my voice seems normal for a woman. I don't have any speech impediments. I try to keep my volume at an appropriate level, be that very quiet or very loud. I take full advantage of the ability of intonation, stress, rhythm, etc. to convey meaning. My speech is generally effective and expressive, whether mellow, excited, cheerful, playful, sarcastic, sympathetic, tender, etc. You could probably easily tell from my voice what kind of mood (I want you to think that) I am in. (Though I almost never yell at people or use my voice aggressively.) My speech is probably characterized most by variety.

Is that helpful? Anything else?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Okay, based on my own quick judgements...

My pronunciation is pretty much standard, or General, American English. I'm a rather careful, tidy speaker. I pay attention to details (I do write and study language, so I notice details). People rarely give any indication that they have trouble understanding me. I've tried to avoid getting into the habit of including fillers like um, uh, like. The range and quality of my voice seems normal for a woman. I don't have any speech impediments. I try to keep my volume at an appropriate level, be that very quiet or very loud. I take full advantage of the ability of intonation, stress, rhythm, etc. to convey meaning. My speech is generally effective and expressive, whether mellow, excited, cheerful, playful, sarcastic, sympathetic, tender, etc. You could probably easily tell from my voice what kind of mood (I want you to think that) I am in. (Though I almost never yell at people or use my voice aggressively.) My speech is probably characterized most by variety.

Is that helpful? Anything else?

Yes, it's helpful: a good thorough description in that I get a clear picture from it. It also, as a side note, is what I would expect from your posts.

I've become interested in the phenomenon of the gap, if any, between people's prose and their speaking voices. You must have had the experience of reading a lot of someone's writing and only later hearing a recording of their voice, and being surprised that it was nothing like you expected. When I first heard Feynman's voice, for instance, I was completely shocked: he had a thick American/Yiddish intonation thing, like comedian Jackie Mason. There's the sense that he's forcing his voice down deeper than it's natural register, the consonants are kind of thick: t's have an almost d sound, and he lapsed into this rising intonation at the end of words and sentences that I've only heard in Yiddish speakers who use English as a second language. It's kind of crude and uneducated sounding. In other recordings of him I heard after that he'd dropped a lot of the sing-song and settled on a more standard NY accent.

For one reason or another I tend to create strong, and apparently specific, notions of how people must sound based on their posts. I've spoken to three people I met online on the phone and only one of them was close to what I thought they'd sound like. I'm not completely sure where I'm getting these ideas of what people probably sound like, but it is no more reliable than forming a picture of what they must look like.

 

[LeBrad]

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?

 

[Math Is Hard]

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?

Neat-o! At first, I thought it should be simple - but maybe not - if all three words have to be completely unrelated.

Also, there were a few compounds I thought of yesterday that involved antonyms. Wish I had written them down now. oh, I remember, bridegroom was one.

 

[honestrosewater]

How about the opposite, where the 3 words have nothing to do with each other, like shuttlecock?

Hm, no, I think shuttlecock is a trinonym in the context of your face.

 

[honestrosewater]

Neat-o! At first, I thought it should be simple - but maybe not - if all three words have to be completely unrelated.

Also, there were a few compounds I thought of yesterday that involved antonyms. Wish I had written them down now. oh, I remember, bridegroom was one.

Be careful, MIH. Look at what happened to the last person who took one of LeBrad's suggestions seriously:
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http://xs68.xs.to/pics/06073/scary.jpg


Hah, I could marry that picture, I love it so much!

 

[LeBrad]

Hm, no, I think shuttlecock is a trinonym in the context of your face.

NoseRoseToes, I'm flattered by your affection. Really, I am. But I'm afraid at this stage of my life I'm just not looking for a relationship with an internet psycho. Don't take it the wrong way, you're a nice girl, but you really have to stop hitting on me.

 

[honestrosewater]

NoseRoseToes, I'm flattered by your affection. Really, I am. But I'm afraid at this stage of my life I'm just not looking for a relationship with an internet psycho. Don't take it the wrong way, you're a nice girl, but you really have to stop hitting on me.

That's not what you said last night on the phone to your girlfriend while you were eating a ham sandwich in those SpiderMan boxers your mom got you for Christmas. Who are you calling a peeping tom anyway?!

 

[LeBrad]

That's not what you said last night on the phone to your girlfriend while you were eating a ham sandwich in those SpiderMan boxers your mom got you for Christmas. Who are you calling a peeping tom anyway?!

Even though I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone last night, I had a ham sandwich for lunch today, have a Spiderman pillow, and wear Mets pajamas. Pfft, some stalker you are, you were way off.

 

[honestrosewater]

Even though I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone last night, I had a ham sandwich for lunch today, have a Spiderman pillow, and wear Mets pajamas. Pfft, some stalker you are, you were way off.

Zebras have stripes. I know that much.

 

[Math Is Hard]

You two are obviously meant for each other.

*Throws rice at HRW and LeBrad*

 

[honestrosewater]

You two are obviously meant for each other.

*Throws rice at HRW and LeBrad*

Non, I'm just using him to get to Chomsky and, with him, World Domination. But you know what's even more surprising? Stripeless zebra baffles experts.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Non, I'm just using him to get to Chomsky and, with him, World Domination. But you know what's even more surprising? Stripeless zebra baffles experts.

I don't buy it. Next, you'll be asking me to believe in spotless leopards.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Whats wrong with choochootrain, pussycat, and barenaked?

My only problem with choochootrain is that I can't construct a sentence where I can swap all three:

I am taking the train to San Diego.
I am taking the choochootrain to San Diego.
I am taking the choochoo to San Diego.

The third one doesn't work for me, but maybe you have another sentence that works better.

"Pussycat" is perfectly valid, but I see it as a spin-off of the author's "kittycat". Yours is certainly better within the definition, since there are no age connotations associated (this is where "puppydog" fails), but I can see how the author would gingerly avoid one of the words of this construct, since he is writing for a large national syndicate.

"Barenaked" is excellent, but my only concern is that it tends to be regional in usage.

 

[Math Is Hard]

p.s. I think "Jellyfish" functions as one of LeBrad's "triple non-relationals".

 

[honestrosewater]

Ooh ooh! I have a triple non-relational: Brad nail.

 

[Moonbear]

p.s. I think "Jellyfish" functions as one of LeBrad's "triple non-relationals".

What about carjack?

 

[Curious3141]

Here's the solution, for anyone who is interested.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/phillycom_teases/14138508.htm
And here are the trinonyms:

Bunnyrabbit
Ratfink
Sodapop
Taxicab
Forefront
Oleomargarine
Taperecord
Kittycat
Sumtotal
also, I think 84 across "Getonboard" was supposed to be one, but that didn't quite work for me.

Don't forget :

Pussycat (similar to kittycat)
Moocow (remember James Joyce - I guess that makes this a real word)
Cellphone

On a related note, I've always been fascinated by another class of words where letters can be removed (while maintaining the order of the remaining letters) to give a new word with the same meaning as the old one.

E.g.
satiate, sate
rapscallion, rascal
inflammable, flammable (though this one is a bit trivial)

Any other examples ? BTW, if this concept has not been explored before, let me coin a phrase : "russian doll words".

 

[zoobyshoe]

My only problem with choochootrain is that I can't construct a sentence where I can swap all three:

I am taking the train to San Diego.
I am taking the choochootrain to San Diego.
I am taking the choochoo to San Diego.

The third one doesn't work for me, but maybe you have another sentence that works better.

They all work if it's the era of "Ratfink" and "Oleomargarine":

"Chattanooga Choo Choo

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty-nine
Boy, you can gimme a shine
I can afford
To board a Chattanooga choo choo
I've got my fare
And just a trifle to spare

You leave the Pennsylvania Station
'bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then
you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham an' eggs
in Carolina

When you hear the whistle blowin'
eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee
is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

There's going to be
A certain party at the station
Satin and lace
I used to call "funny face"
She's going to cry
Until I tell her that I'll never roam
So Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?
Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?"

"Pussycat" is perfectly valid, but I see it as a spin-off of the author's "kittycat". Yours is certainly better within the definition, since there are no age connotations associated (this is where "puppydog" fails), but I can see how the author would gingerly avoid one of the words of this construct, since he is writing for a large national syndicate.

"Pussycat" is certainly no "spinoff" of kittykat, but a term that used to be very common along with it as an alternate, as can be seen in Tweetybird's famous "I tot I taw a puddytat!" It came to be used less and less when the first part started to have a second slang meaning. That second slang meaning didn't become cemented till the Johnny Carson incident (Late 60's -early 70's?) when Raquel Welsh went onto the tonight show holding a cat on her lap. Johnny want over to her and asked if he could pet her kitty. No one really blinked at that, and she said "Sure". Then he said "Well, then move the cat." IIRC, the incident was cut from the show and not aired, but word of it spread fast and the slang meaning had suddenly toppled the original feline meaning.

"Barenaked" is excellent, but my only concern is that it tends to be regional in usage.

I think the group Barenaked Ladies broke it away from any regional barriers it may once have had, at least in the sense of spreading knowledge of it much more broadly, not that it's actively used by a lot of people.

 

[Curious3141]

Just thought of a good trinonym : tincan

Interestingly, when tin is appended to can, the "tin" part signifies the metal used. However, "tin" by itself can also mean can. So it's a valid trinonym.

Also, all trinonyms form a subset of my "russian doll words", since letters can be removed from trinonyms to leave another word that's synonymous with the original. In fact trinonyms are special cases of russian doll words, since trinonyms (by definition) can be modified in two distinct ways to give synonyms.

 

[honestrosewater]

Interestingly, when tin is appended to can, the "tin" part signifies the metal used. However, "tin" by itself can also mean can. So it's a valid trinonym.

Maybe I can get you to think that it is not so interesting (or at least not surprising or inexplicable or is interesting for a different reason).

For one thing, if tin meant can in tincan, why would anyone have ever formed or used tincan? It would have made just as much sense to form and use cantin, cancan, or tintin. The same thing applies to all of these other trinonyms.

But I propose that how tin came to mean (or could have come to mean) tincan is a regular, predictable process.

English compounds are of the form

[[complement][head]]

in that order, where brackets surround words. Compounding words is similar to adding or multiplying numbers. The math people here can think of compounding as a binary operation on words (it is one, by my definition). The head and complement themselves can be compounds as well:

[[[complement][head]][head]]
[[complement][[complement][head]]]
[[[[complement][head]][head]][head]]
...

So in tincan, tin is the complement and can is the head. The head determines the category and broad meaning of the compound, so the set of the compound's referents is a subset of the set of the head's referents. (A fairytale is a specific type of tale, a blackbird is a specific type of bird, first base is a specific type of base, a kittycat is at least a type of cat, as a cat is a type of cat, even if not more specific). The complement, however, can differ from the compound in both category and meaning, and by its association with the compound, the complement can take on the compound's meaning and category.

I think this basic process of the complement 'leeching' the compound's features is also happening with tincan -- the features that get leeched are just different.

(You could possibly look at it in different ways. I'm not really sure if it's a morphological (words & their parts) process or syntactic (phrases & their parts) process, say, where the head is deleted, but I'll assume you guys aren't that interested, and either way, the result is the same. Oh, I meant to correct myself before: clipping is used only for deletions based on sound analysis, not deletions based on meaning analysis. Saying sis for sister and bro for brother are instances of clipping. I'm not sure what to call this deletion of complements and heads, but its name is no great matter.)

I think what happened with tincan might be what happened with, e.g., water bottle. (And two heads are better than one anyway. :groan:) Tin and water, as nouns, are mass, or non-count, nouns, as opposed to count nouns like can and bottle. (The count/mass distinction really refers to how words can function; a word isn't, e.g., a count noun but, rather, is functioning as a count noun in a particular instance.) I won't bore y'all with the details; the basic idea is that you can count count nouns. Count nouns can be pluralized (dogs), used with cardinals and many (three dogs, many dogs), and are thought of as coming in discrete units, or being quantized. Mass nouns cannot be pluralized or used with cardinals (*fogs, *three fog(s)), are used with much (much fog), and use quantizers (a patch of fog, two bottles of water, an ounce of tin).

Tincan(s) and water bottle(s) function as count nouns. And when you use tin and water to mean tincan and water bottle, tin and water, which are usually mass nouns and, more importantly, are mass nouns in their compounds, become count nouns:

5) Where did those three tins go?
6) Can we have two waters, please?

That is, the complements are leeching the count feature of the compound (and perhaps they must do so when they take on the compound's meaning).

The reason I chose water bottle is that it introduces another explanation: water could be functioning as a count noun because the head of water bottle was deleted or because the quantizer of bottle of water was deleted, as when you say waters to mean glasses/cups/servings/etc. of water. It would be interesting to look at the mass/count feature in other compounds to see if there are any rules at work there. Can mass nouns function as compound heads? I can't think of any at the moment.* Anywho... sorry, I love this stuff.

Does that make sense? I realize it's GD and people might just not care about this stuff, but if anyone is interested and wants me to explain something, I'd be glad to try.

I imagine people do use tin to refer to any kind of can, but do they use tincan that way?

*(Edit: Oh, right, oleomargarine and sodapop, mass compounds with mass heads and mass complements. Ooh, but look at breakwater, which turns count -- this is a special type of compound formed by incorporation, usually a verb and one of its arguments (direct object, etc.); breakwaters break water, as scarecrows scare crows. But maybe it has nothing to do with incorporation. Water could have already been turned to a count noun by deleting its quantizer, as when you say waters to mean some bodies of water (oceans or whatever). Or, I don't know, how do people use breakwater? I haven't heard it much, but considering it as a wall, I would use it as a count noun. Okay, shutting up now.)

 

[Math Is Hard]

What about carjack?

close. but the trouble is that car and jack both have relationships with carjack, so I think it's difficult to classify it as a true triple non-relational.
Now, shampoo on the other hand... ok, that is disqualified for not being a true compound of two words but I thought it was funny.


As for the trinonyms, I really liked tincan at first, but it seems it's not a true compound, as I can only find "tin can" in the dictionaries. Same for "cell phone".

Zoob, I had forgotten all about the Chattanooga Choochoo!

 

[honestrosewater]

Shampoo.

As for the trinonyms, I really liked tincan at first, but it seems it's not a true compound, as I can only find "tin can" in the dictionaries. Same for "cell phone".

If the empty space between the words is what bothers you, I don't think it should. Writing systems aren't the best reflection of a language's structure; speech (or gesture for sign languages) is much better.

I think that a good test for whether a given segment of sound, string of letters, or whatever is functioning as a single unit is to try to rearrange its parts or insert other units into it.

Say the head is a noun (the same reasoning applies to other categories). (7a) and (7b) are two possible underlying structures of the Noun Phrase (7).

7) black bear
7a) [black bear]
7b) [black [bear]]

(7a) is a NP consisting of one noun and refers to some set of bear species which may or may not be black. (7b) is a NP consisting of an adjective and a noun and refers to any bear that is black. You can insert an adjective between another adjective and a noun, but you cannot insert an adjective into the middle of a noun, so (7bi) is fine, while (7ai) is just as bad as (8ai), where big is inserted into another NP consisting of one noun, bear:

7ai) *[black big bear]
7bi) [black [big [bear]]]

8) bear
8a) [bear]
8ai) *[bebigar]

Hm, maybe that was too much explanation. It's pretty obvious to me. A big teddy bear isn't the same thing as a teddy big bear (I don't even know what a teddy big bear is).

Also, many English compounds are pronouned differently than their non-compound counterparts. The stress is placed on the first word in compounds but on the second word in the ordinary phrases:

cold cream (compound meaning a face cream) // cold cream (phrase meaning a cream that is cold)
blackbird (compound meaning a member of a certain family of birds) // black bird (phrase meaning a bird that is black)
black bear (designates several species of bear, I think) // black bear (any bear that is black)

So this is another test, though failing this test doesn't mean a phrase isn't a compound. Only passing the test tells you something.

Blackbird and black bear function in English as if they are the same type of thing, a compound. (And they are both treated as compounds by linguists.) I think the empty space in their written forms is superficial and largely (though not entirely) accidental -- it's more conventional than rule-governed. You can find plenty of variation in the way the 'same' compound is written (with a space, a hyphen, or no space).

Anywho, asking whether a big tin can is the same thing as a tin big can should help you determine whether (this one meaning of) tin can is a compound or not.

I meant to bring up the writing system thing regarding the search for russian doll words. I think it would be more efficient to try to look for some processes that would form russian doll words than to just look for russian doll words.

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration -Thomas A. Edison,

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor -Nikola Tesla

The processes that change words take speech into account. If they take spelling into account at all, it is as an afterthought. Even if you really want the spelling to be the same, I still think looking at these process would help your search.

For example, as far as affixation, the process that formed satiate from sate, is concerned, -ible and -able are the same suffix. (And that we spell them differently is, IMO, just stupid.) I don't think you should ignore anything, but if you're going to ignore something, I would ignore spelling, not speech.

Satiate gives you a series of processes already. They mean the same because sate is a verb ending in ate:

a) choose a verb ending in ate;
b) suffix a suffix to (a) that changes its category but not its meaning;
bx) repeat (b) x times;
c) suffix -ate to (bx).

(c) changes (a)'s category back to verb without changing its meaning. So find more verbs that end in ate and do the same thing. I'm not sure yet what the middle steps were, if there even were any (I assume there is some reason for the word's redundancy).

 

[Math Is Hard]

You're still resisting "pussycat" and "barenaked"? Here I am trying to amuse and entertain you with these word forms you seem to like, I find what I think are three good ones in a row, bam, bam, bam, and now I have to fight to get you to accept them!

Whoa! You're reading way too much into my response (or lack of).

Should we reject "pussycat" because half of it has come to have a vulgar meaning when used by itself? You seem concerned that the cross-word guy would be thrown into some kind of decency dilema when considering if he could bring this example up. That, if true, is a separate sort of problem I don't have to resolve. All I can say is "pussycat" fits the form you're looking for to a T.

I never said reject pussycat. I thought it was better than kittycat.

Is "barenaked" too regional? I think "ratfink, oleomargarine", and "taperecord" have the vastly worse disadvantage of having gone completely out of use altogether. It seems to me if we forgive them that, any regionalism "barenaked" might have (what region is this from, anyway?) should be overlooked.

I said I thought it was excellent but expressed my honest hesitations about it.

Zoob, you get all three. It's a hat trick! My only hold-out was choochootrain but you convinced me that choochoo and train could be synonymous.

 

[Math Is Hard]

If the empty space between the words is what bothers you, I don't think it should. Writing systems aren't the best reflection of a language's structure; speech (or gesture for sign languages) is much better.

No, doesn't bother me a bit, but I think the inventor of the game might balk. My observation was that all of his trinonyms were true compound words, no separations, no hyphenation.

I wonder if the author is lurking around here, cackling with glee, enjoying the seeds of discord he's sowing at PF. I'm convinced Merl Reagle is one of Satan's minions.

Show yourself, Merl! You cad! Crosshole!

 

[zoobyshoe]

I wonder if the author is lurking around here, cackling with glee, enjoying the seeds of discord he's sowing at PF. I'm convinced Merl Reagle is one of Satan's minions.

Show yourself, Merl! You cad! Crosshole!

Oh, sure! Blame him, you spawn of the underworld!

http://www.artonyou.com/Evil%20Barbie%20Demon1.jpg

We know who started this thread!

 

[honestrosewater]

No, doesn't bother me a bit, but I think the inventor of the game might balk. My observation was that all of his trinonyms were true compound words, no separations, no hyphenation.

Oh, right, they were used for a crossword. I guess empty spaces and hyphens aren't so welcome in crosswords.

Still, assuming Merl is reading (), my point was that if there is any separation, it is only in the writing system, and even then, it is largely arbitrary. There is a 'rule' that we use blank spaces to separate words. But it isn't clear what to do with compounds because, from one perspective, a compound is one word, and from another perspective, a compound is two words. Hyphenation is a compromise, but not everyone uses this or uses it consistently. That's the thing about writing systems: they don't seem to be part of the innate part of language, i.e., there are no innate writing rules as there are other innate linguistc rules. Our writing systems are derived from our speech systems. Throw in all their arbitrariness and it's oftentimes a crapshoot. But I digress/rant.

Anywho, my satiate example was quick and sloppy, so just forget it. (And that might not even be what happened to sate.) The basic idea is the same: pieces are added that end up leading back to the original meaning. One thing you might want to look for are what I'll call russian doll http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAStem.htm-http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnAffixLinguistics.htm pairs, or RDSAP.

The affixes that English mainly uses are prefixes and suffixes. Affixes can be defined by specifyng their form(s), the lexical category to which they affix, the lexical category that they form, and the rough meaning that they contribute (the meanings can be quite peculiar since the meaning of the resulting word is derived from the meaning of the stem). For example, -er affixes to verbs to form nouns meaning roughly a thing that [verb]s (e.g., a singer is a thing that sings, a hunter is a thing that hunts).

You want the affix of a RDSAP to have the same resulting lexical category as the stem of the RDSAP. You have some options with their meanings, which are complicated anyway. Obviously, for the more interesting ones, the meanings of the affix and stem would 'agree' in some way, but yah, I'm not sure how to be more specific than that. Boo meanings.

Anywho, the idea is that affix of the RDSAP is the last in the sequence of affixes that lead back to the meaning of the RDSAP's stem. Once you find the pair, you would look for middle steps and hopefully find several options.

Some admittedly uninteresting (you aren't likely to find people actually using them because they are so obviously redundant) but productive ones are affixes that can cancel themselves out. For example, (double) negation can do this with some meanings and doesn't change the category of the stem. So the affixes meaning roughly not [stem], un-, in-, the variants of in- (im-, il-, ir-), can give you an infinite set of RD words. For example, the set of all stems such that un-un-[stem] means [stem] is infinite (un-un-tie is enough to do that thanks to recursion, but there are probably other roots that work too).

Another uninteresting but promising idea is using stems that include a zero derivation, i.e., where the lexical category is changed without changing the form at all (to stone / a stone). Then you only need to find one affix (which is presumably easier than finding a sequence of affixes that work together). For the verb stone, you would want an affix that attached to nouns to form verbs meaning roughly to kill/bury/destroy with [noun]s. Pretend that -ate does this. Then you could affix it to the noun stone to get the verb meaning to stone, stonate -- ack! Spelling is so stupid! Lucky thing -ate has an e. It wasn't the greatest example anyway.

In addition to, or instead of, looking for stem-affix pairs, you could look for affix tuples, i.e., affixes that you can add in a certian order to get back to the meaning of the original stem. Once you find them, you can look for stems that they work on. Meaning is such a pain though.

It might be easier to find words that match a given affix's meaning rather than looking for affixes that match a given word's meaning since there are fewer affixes than words, i.e., start with affixes and then look for words. But yeah, I'll stop typing now.

 

[JamesU]

Oh, sure! Blame him, you spawn of the underworld!

http://www.artonyou.com/Evil%20Barbie%20Demon1.jpg

We know who started this thread!

that has to be one of the funniest pics in existence

 

[honestrosewater]

Oh, I found a backwards one! The complement is the one that doesn't fit: shoeshine.

I really liked gunslinger but I don't think slinger works (perhaps if we were in the Wild West. Ah, those were the good old days). You can use gun rhetorically to refer to a person. I want to find some synecdoche trinonyms.

Perhaps Merl should do a puzzle where the clues are the contexts in which those words would be trinonyms, e.g., Wild West is the clue for gunslinger. There are plenty of those. Gah, I really want gunslinger!

 

[honestrosewater]

Greenwood? I want to find a synecdoche trinonym involving land (even land meaning the people of the land, or country) (I just know there is one somewhere). (If I could only stop giggling about Woody Woodpecker). Wood here would mean forest. I'm not sure anyone uses green as a noun to mean forest. I've seen it used for vegetation, but perhaps that's not close enough. And perhaps wood is too general here anyway.

Oh, -land as in woodland and grassland might work with something I can't think of. Farmland? Bah.

I might have a pattern for shoeshine. What do you think of lunchbreak and handshake? Warmer? The process has something to do with the heads being verbs and becoming nouns for the compounds -- I just thought of those as I was falling asleep, so I'm sleepposting now. But you see the idea: you shine shoes, shake hands, break for lunch... if the same leeching process holds for the complements, now the heads that are normally verbs don't have as much competition, so it might solve that problem. That is, the head can also leech the compound's category. It might present new problems though. Anywho, :zzz:

Sheesh, almost asleep again. I forgot to mention that in quickly looking up some stuff earlier about -ate, it seems that an English process and a Latin process might work together to make lots of RD words. Latin, which is a highly-inflected language and, from what I understand, quite regular, seems to form past participles in such a way that, long story short, English ends up having words that it borrowed from Latin whose verb and adjective forms both end in -ate. For example, animate, situate, satiate. Now, English, as I mentioned, forms its past participles by suffixing -ed to the verb. Why is that cool? The resulting adjectives have the same meaning as the adjective forms from Latin. That is, the adjectives animated, situated, satiated mean the same as the adjectives animate, situate, satiate. Sure, it's only an extra d, but this is a nice find, I think. Also, since Latin inflection is quite regular and participle formation in English is productive, it's possible that ALL of those types of words that English borrowed from Latin are RD words. Someone have a good idea for how to find a list of those words? This time for real. :zzz:

OMG, someone please shoot me so I can get some sleep. If anyone wants to read this and see if there's a way to use wildcards to turn up a non-ginormous list of words ending in ate, http://www.onelook.com/?c=faq#patterns. If not, I'll look when I awake. Lots (like at least 1/3) of English words come from Latin, so it's not exactly small potatoes. Or something. :zzz:

 

[haldiman]

Reagle responds

I'm a big fan of Merl's and also know him in passing. I dropped him a line and what he wrote is below. Barry Haldiman

i can't tell you how much i enjoyed the physicists' string on trinonyms! maybe you could pass this along to them.

i agree with them about the need for a strict definition of trinonym, and the following is what I've been telling people who write to me with their own suggestions.

"taxi cab" and "rat fink" are perfect trinonyms. the main rule i go by is that there must be a high level of "synonymic interchangeability" (or maybe "synerchangeability"?) among all three terms when used in a sentence. i used "bathtub" as my example because at the time i felt it legitimately passed this test -- "i'm going to hop in the bath," "i'm going to hop in the tub," "i'm going to hop in the bathtub." admittedly, there's a bathing context to this, which is why "tub" seems to work, but i now feel it falls into a category that i =don't= allow in which the "B" word is a generic term for the "A" word.

in other words, i wouldn't allow "jet plane" or its ilk because all planes aren't jets. this also leaves out "puppy dog," since all dogs aren't puppies. but i did allow "get on board" because it passed the interchangeability test -- "to get on a bus," "to board a bus," and "to get on board a bus" all mean the same thing, and there's no generic problem.

others I've found since the puzzle came out are "shapshot" and "smash hit." i think "teeny-weeny" works too, since "weeny" by itself is a legit dictionary entry. "itsy-bitsy" i probably would not allow, though, since I've never heard anyone use the word "itsy" by itself.

i have to admit that my inclination is to be a little lenient in accepting "close call" examples, like "comic strip," even though some comics are panels.

but otherwise my goal is to try to keep a trinonym is as specific a thing as possible -- A=B=AB.

--merl